Skip to main content

ministry of magic - How did Perkins find out that the time of Harry's trial had changed?


Harry and Mr Weasley only find out about the change in the time of Harry's hearing because of Perkins, who works in Mr Weasley's office. Their conversation gives the impression that it was pure coincidence that Harry and Mr Weasley came in early and that Perkins was able to find them.



"Ah, Harry, this is Perkins.”
A stooped, timid-looking old wizard with fluffy white hair had just entered the room, panting.

“Oh Arthur!” he said desperately, without looking at Harry. “Thank goodness, I didn’t know what to do for the best, whether to wait here for you or not, I’ve just sent an owl to your home but you’ve obviously missed it - an urgent message came ten minutes ago -”
“I know about the regurgitating toilet,” said Mr. Weasley.
“No, no, it’s not the toilet, it’s the Potter boy’s hearing - they’ve changed the time and venue - it starts at eight o’clock now and it’s down in old Courtroom Ten."
“Down in old - but they told me - Merlin’s beard -”
Mr. Weasley looked at his watch, let out a yelp, and leapt from his chair.
“Quick, Harry, we should have been there five minutes ago!”
(Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 7, The Ministry of Magic).



What isn't clear is how Perkins might've found out about the change in time and location. The only communication seems to have been from the Wizengamot to Harry by owl.




“Sorry,” said Harry nervously. “I-I didn’t know the time had changed.”
“That is not the Wizengamot’s fault,” said the voice. “An owl was sent to you this morning. Take your seat.”
(Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 8, The Hearing).



Considering that the whole point of the exercise of moving the hearing was to try and get Harry to miss his trial and be expelled automatically it seems strange that Perkins would be privy to this information. I'd have thought that the true trial time would be closely guarded secret within the Ministry.


Perkins clearly didn't see the owl that was sent to Grimmauld Place. So how could he have possibly known about the change in time and location?



Answer



I think you may have misconstrued the order of events slightly. The Ministry moved the trial and a letter was sent by owl to Mr Weasley at impossibly short notice so that there would be plausible deniability that they'd tried to get hold of him.


At the same time it would appear that a member of the Wizengamot (or A.N. Other MoM official) who was loyal to Dumbledore contacted Perkins in order to try to get hold of Mr Weasley. This was separate to the owl/s and was probably an unauthorised action.





As to the identity of the mole, my money is on Madam Bones. In addition to showing an obvious desire to give Harry a fair hearing she was the first to call for a vote to acquit him and personally lead the faction that voted in his favour. Although she wasn't a fully paid-up member of the Order of the Phoenix, she was definitely part of the anti-Voldemort tendency and connected to the Order through her deceased brother, a former member.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...